Puzzle Pieces
by The.Forgotten.Ones92
Summary: Leah was the black sheep of her family, that was clear. At first she'd thought the Army was the place that she'd finally fit in. Little did she know that, after meeting a particular red-headed boy, the place she'd finally find her fit was far, far away from it.


Disclaimer: don't own shameless, or its characters..

A/N

"I need to get out of here," he muttered, his voice slightly muted by the crunch of his morning cereal.

"What? We just got here," Leah questioned, taking the first bite of her own extremely flavourless, generic cereal.

"No-no I mean I need to get out of this shit hole."

"Lip, we haven't even been here that long," Leah replied offhandedly, somewhat confused at his change in attitude. "You've been going on and on about how this is what you've always wanted, what gives?'

It was pretty much true. Every since the newest wave of enlistee's had arrived 2 months ago Phillip had been the most energetic one of the bunch. People seemed to gravitate towards him. Leah certainly had. He was nice, reminded her of her brothers from back home. Well, reminded her of the few occasions that they'd been nice to her. It wasn't as though they didn't love her. They were just a family full of boys and she was sort of the black sheep.

"Yeah but I just can't – I don't want to do it anymore," he whined, actually whined and Leah couldn't help but wonder what had gotten into him.

"Well, you better suck it up buttercup because we still got another 3 months of basic before we can go home for a visit." She laughed, but abruptly quit when she saw the dark look that settled on Lip's face. "Seriously man, what is your issue?"

Lip didn't respond, instead pushed his cereal away and got up from the table.

"Where are you going?"

"Need some air, you coming or staying to eat this shit," Lip said, looking over his shoulder and nodding at her cereal bowl. "We can go off base quick and grab some McDonalds breakfast. I know you like the little hash brown things."

"I guess, yeah," she said, shovelling the last few bites into her mouth.

The duo made there way from the cafeteria and outside. It warm, but not quite as warm as Leah was used to. "You know you ain't supposed to be smoking those things on the grounds, right?"

It was just a cigarette hanging from the boy's mouth, but it really was against the rules. Not that she was stickler, but she'd done her best to quit herself when she got here and watching the guy smoking was making her crave one of her own.

Lip just rolled his eyes, and continued puffing away.

"So what, are you homesick, you miss Chicago?" Leah pushed a little, in an effort to get the boy talking.

"Yeah, sure, I don't know," he replied. "I guess I just thought that this was what I wanted, but I'm not sure. I have other dreams you know, lots of dreams."

"Oh?" Leah was real confused at this point. It was like Lip had done a 360.

"Yeah, like..I don't know, but I do," he said, inhaling his last puff and flicking it onto the road ahead of them.

"Okay, well I mean, not much you can do about it now," Leah responded, watching her ginger-haired friend closely.

"Yeah."

It was 2AM when a loud, banging sound shook Leah out of her sleep. _What the fuck._ She opened one eye and scanned the room. No one else seemed to be moving.

Huffing, she dragged herself out of bed and shuffled to the door. When she opened the door she was slightly shocked to see Kyle, another enlistee that she was friendly with.

"Kyle, what in the fuck are you doing so late at night?" she whispered furiously. She was supposed to be up early for a morning work out and she wasn't the least bit happy about being woken from her slumber.

"Sorry, I just didn't know who else to get," he replied, shaking his head with a frown.

"What's the matter then," she prodded, "spit it out."

"Its Lip."

Leah frowned. She hadn't seen him since after they had gotten breakfast.

"And?"

"He- I don't know – he's just being real weird," he muttered, looking extremely uncomfortable.

"Kyle, what in the fuck are you talking about," she demanded, starting to get annoyed with his lack of explanation.

"Can you just come, and talk to him maybe," he asked, wincing with how lame it sounded.

Leah closed her eyes, and inhaled sharply. Grabbing her coat she followed her fellow enlistee down the steps and towards his own bunk house, ignoring the fact that women in the men's houses was strictly off limits.

Climbing the stairs she couldn't help but hope that everyone in there was still asleep, but as Kyle opened the door she realized that luck was not on her side that night. No, she was definitely going to end up in trouble.

There was about 6 pairs of eyes following her as she moved to follow Kyle towards the back of the building, presumably to the bathroom area.

"Nice PJ's Miller, you're definitely going to make my dreams a lot sweeter tonight," a guy she recognized as Jake. Instead of answering him, she flipped him the bird, causing a few snickers to echo through the otherwise quite quarters. It didn't happen all the time, but she'd been victim to a lot more crude remarks since she'd ended up at the base. Nothing that she hadn't already been warned about though.

When they arrived at the closed bathroom door, Kyle hesitated and turned back around to where Leah was standing.

"Should probably just call an officer and have the nutcase carted off," again, another remark from Jake.

"Can it, Jake," another guy, Matt, retorted, sounding annoyed.

Leah closed her eyes and willed herself not to turn around and use the mouth that she knew her polite, southern mother was extremely ashamed of.

"Look, its probably best if you just go in. I've already tried and he's pretty upset," Kyle explained warily.

"What wrong with him," Leah questioned, quietly, so that no one else in the room could here.

"Honestly, I don't know but something is," he whispered back, opening the door for her.

Hesitantly, she stepped forward and squinted into the darkness. It took a while for her eyes to adjust, but when they did they landed on her ginger-haired friend who was sitting in the corner, with his head between his knees.

"Lip – Lip, are you alright?" she asked, moving closer to the boy. He didn't' seem to acknowledge her presence, so she moved forward and laid a hand down on his shoulder.

Without any warning he flung his arms out pushing her back and onto her bum.

"Get away from me!" he yelled, and Leah's heart jumped a little.

"Lip, It's just me," she tried again, more softly this time. "I just want to make sure your alright, okay?"

Slowly, the boy raised his head and looked up at her. His eyes were kind of wild looking and honestly, it looked like he hadn't slept in days.

"Oh," he muttered, "I'm sorry, I just – you scared me."

"Ok Lip, you want tell me what's wrong? Is it the homesickness, do you still want to leave?" she questioned, thinking back to their earlier talk.

"No – I'm not homesick, I fucking ran away from there – I don't want to go back," he muttered, with what Leah could only guess was resentment.

She knew a little bit about running away from her problems, but could tell that something else was going on with her friend.

"Do you want to talk about it? I'm a really great listener," she prodded again, trying to channel her mother's soft, soothing voice.

Lip looked like he was trying to form the word no, but instead his face just crumpled into what could be described as anguish. Tears started to fall and Leah had no idea what to do, so she scooted over and wrapped her arms around the taller boy.

"Okay- okay, It's gonna be alright," she soothed, rubbing her had gently up and down his back.

"The boy's whole body was shaking at this point, wracked with painful sobs.

"I just – I don't know, I don't want to do this anymore – and they won't let me fucking leave – and Fiona keeps calling and Lip and I just can't take it anymore – and Mickey, oh god Mickey– to that Russian slut and her baby – and Monica and Frank – fucking Frank.." he blubbered.

 _Holy Shit._ Leah couldn't understand half of what he was saying, so instead of replying she gently pulled him down so his head was in her lap and she stroked his hair while he cried.

It was only minutes before her legs started to lose feeling, but hours before the boy drifted off to sleep.

She wasn't sure what exactly had gotten into Lip, but she knew it definitely wasn't simple. Unfortunately, she'd never gotten the chance to find out as that night in the bathroom was the last time she'd seem him on base.


End file.
